Stupid haunted Matlock's new Nokia 3310 is now also malfunctioning, as his previous dumbphone did.

I'm pretty sure it's not entirely his fault, though, because he can use my phone just fine. So we're going to return the Nokia (on the LAST DAY possible), then I figure I'll give him my phone, but then I need a new one, and I don't know what.

I want a cheap Android phone (it'd be great if there were a phone that already had Lineage or something installed, but I'm not expecting to find that), with a replaceable battery. Preferably GSM so I can just switch my SIM card over, but I could switch to CDMA if it was a good enough deal otherwise.

I don't do much other than calls and texts on it and would probably only even turn data on like once or twice a year. I mostly just want something cheap.

I am just sick and tired of looking at fucking phones all the livelong day for my whole entire life like I have so far, so you guys do it for me this time?

My last experience with a Samsung Android phone was they stopped offering security patches after less than a year. Next time I get an Android it will be something I can update myself. No recommendations.

1. Since you're too lazy and impatient to wait for my accidental Tapatalk sig,* it is an LG G4.
2. It is "refurbished," so maybe it has been pre-broken for me. If not, I might put a different ROM on it and break it that way. Only time will tell.

My last experience with a Samsung Android phone was they stopped offering security patches after less than a year. Next time I get an Android it will be something I can update myself. No recommendations.

Our S5s got security patches through last April (3 years after they were first introduced). (Got two years of OS updates, through Marshmallow.)

Stupid haunted Matlock's new Nokia 3310 is now also malfunctioning, as his previous dumbphone did.

This makes me unspeakably sad. I've been wondering just how much mobile phone I really need. I liked the form factor of the 3310. The only other thing keeping me from it would have been that it might not be acceptable to my network (Google Fi).

Yeah, I know. I was really excited about that phone too. Of course, the one we got could just have been defective or something. I was all ready to blame Matlock, like maybe his ears were getting in the way or something, but he can use my current phone just fine, so I guess that's not it.

But one thing is that it does have a bunch of undeletable apps, including Facebook, Twitter, some really janky looking kids' game, which seems like an anti-feature for most people buying a dumbphone these days. That really bugged me a lot.

Also, this isn't a huge thing, but while it felt sturdy, not as much as the older ones. It's thinner and lighter, and a different type of plastic.

Well, not one of those, but I do want this one linked from that article. Like, really, really bad I want that. REALLY BAD.

I did get my new phone, and it seems to be in good condition, and as advertised (and it is unlocked).

But Jesus Fucking Fuck, it's always traumatizing to see a "stock" mobile device. There is just so much garbage, so many features you can't turn off and intrusive, battery hogging, undeleteable apps.And no matter how many times I do it, I always forget what a horrific clusterfuck it is trying to get a new device to some sort of usable (BY ME) state.

I used to work on getting my devices to do things I wanted them to do. That was easier and much more enjoyable. I straight up hate this stuff, though.

I wanted an "in front of the tv" device for little things. The spot formerly held by MacBro. I ended up with a Samsung Tab A. Yeesh. The bloatware on that thing - nevermind the inability to adopt removable storage.

It became pretty obvious that they were not making rooting easy, so I decided after a couple of tries to actually pay someone to root it because it had a guarantee and because I really don't like Android and hate how I have to wade through all that trash to do the simplest thing that I never want to do again. So I did, and I was on with this guy for HOURS. And I mean like five, six hours, fighting with that garbage phone, before finally, at almost midnight, he got an update to complete successfully, and then, dead. Just stone cold dead. I cannot get any sign of life from this phone at all now. I would not be surprised if that was intentional, like LG put that out there to intentionally brick devices rather than let people root them.

Do I regret trying, though? OH HELL NO. There was no way in hell I was going to use that infernal machine the way it was. So, just for one example, they hide or disable even the weakest ass user controls in Android, so in order to disable automatic OTA updates, you have to go to one of those stupid 'secret' menus from the dialer. (277634#*#, which I hope I forget soon because I do not want that taking up long term memory.) But even after I did that, it kept turning them on again. If you swap the battery or I think even turn the phone off and on again, and then turn it back on with wifi enabled (I never even put my SIM card in), it instantly starts updating apps. There were over 70 of them the last time I restarted it, all just bullshit garbage. That I not only didn't ask for, but explicitly told it not to do.

Seriously, think about how obscene that is for just a second. It makes me kind of sick when people talk about how they have these super-powerful computers in their pockets like it's a good thing. I mean, yeah, it's true. You do have a super-powerful computer in your pocket, but it's not yours. Not only can you not do what you want with it, but you can't prevent others from doing what they want.

So whatever. This is my life now. This is what I do with whatever is left of my life: Fight with obnoxious mobile devices.

There was no way in hell I was going to use that infernal machine the way it was.

I was thinking about this, I wonder if the next big generational tech divide will be between those who are used to interacting with a smart learning algorithm and those that aren't.

I grew up on the cusp of experiencing my first computers with BASIC as a built in easy to access program where you quickly learned the computer will do whatever you tell it to, and only what you tell it too, even to the detriment of the computer or user. Whereas today's teens experience computers and the internet as often having a 'smart' system in between them and whatever they're accessing.

I could totally see the future version of setting the VCR clock being how to sweet talk an AI or retrain a learning algorithm.

A little while ago I noticed that my truck detected my Belkin notepad keyboard device that has been sitting on a shelf in my office for over a month. Really? That would be a nice way to interface with that system in the truck. Right now it is nearly impossible to reply to a text message using the voice-to-text feature, it's too stupid. Either that or I have marbles in my mouth and it cannot understand me.

__________________Sleep - the most beautiful experience in life - except drink.--W.C. Fields

There was no way in hell I was going to use that infernal machine the way it was.

I was thinking about this, I wonder if the next big generational tech divide will be between those who are used to interacting with a smart learning algorithm and those that aren't.

That's true, and I think you're right.

But that's not what's happening that's bugging me in these cases. It's not the type of mechanism of controlling the devices, it's who's controlling them. And most of the time, the controls are no more advanced than they were in 1985, but you're locked out of them.

It's basic-assed undeleteable system, manufacturer, and carrier bloatware that you are required to host on your equipment, simple settings you can't change, "features" that you don't use and actively don't want that you can't turn off, and basic operations that any actual computer has been able to do since we started calling them 'computers' that you no longer can do.

(Unless you at least root your device, and ideally install a custom ROM, but that, as we have learned, is a risky proposition.)

I would suggest that a lot of young people literally have no idea that it should even be possible to control the basic aspects of your devices like that. Not only do they not know how to do things like look at the files or processes on their devices, or adjust settings directly rather than installing some bloated, intrusive software to do it for them, it would never even occur to them that these things would be possible. And that goes back to this thing I've been complaining about forever, which is how corporations use software to stick a layer of unnecessary obfuscation between users and technologies, intentionally designed to make things look harder than they are.

The problem isn't advancing technologies so much as it is pervasive, exploitative, and completely unfettered capitalism.

Indeed, it was mostly spurred on after someone told me that perhaps I didn't know how to use facebook right, seemingly not knowing that facebook isn't the same for all people or that not everyone likes to use it the way its system wants you to.